Journal through Grief

On July 3rd 2000 a journey began for Nick, Sheri and Joshua Turnbull (and hundreds of others) that took them to places they never thought they would go, nor wanted to go.  That voyage seemingly ended one year and nine days later when the fight was lost to the fierce battle against Joshua’s cancer.  On that day of July 12th 2001, a new journey commenced, but this time with one less participant.

When CS Lewis wrote his second book on suffering it looked quite different to his first.  It was shorter, more honest and closer to home.  “A Grief Observed” is his journey of dealing with the death of his wife, who was taken prematurely by bone marrow cancer.  Perhaps the title of Lewis’ jottings best describes these exerpts. 

These entries articulate a rawness of feeling and thought.  But remember, you are joining a road that has many ups and downs, twists and turns, potholes and narrow edges at times.    This has been a journey, with each hour, day, month and year bringing new perspectives.

These excerpts are from Nick’s journal:-

“ I’m not sure what has finally led me to put my ‘sacred space’ up into a public domain.  No-one likes to feel exposed or vulnerable, especially me! I haven’t done it to show people how well, or not so well, we are doing.  Neither have I done it so people may simply observe someone travelling through grief.  My intention was to never let anyone read these words.  It is my journal, my words, my world and indeed, my grief.  But I’m beginning to recognise that we like to keep doors firmly closed where we have pain and un-dealt-with issues.  I’m also learning how precious and short life is, and how I, and fellow mankind, waste so much of time on things that just don’t matter, often at the cost of things that do.  So I offer these words as a perspective, which my dear little boy’s death has brought upon me.  I never wanted to see life from this angle.  I had a good view from where I was, or perhaps I thought I did.  My hope is that this serves as a legacy to the one person who has brought me the most joy and happiness yet also the deepest depths of pain.  No one person has inspired me as much as my little four year old son.  His short life has changed mine forever.  If these words can do even a fraction of that for others, then I’m willing to let people in”.

This Journal was a private space to grieve and, at the time, was never intended to be read by anyone else.  But those few and close to me whom I shared excerts with encouraged me to give it a wider audience.   Therefore, this is dedicated to all those who are left behind and who will never forget or 'get over it'!

Scroll down to read the journal.  Please feel free to add comments at the bottom of any entry which I may respond to, if appropriate.

1. The End and the Beginning

Friday 20th July 2001

Today I buried my son! No one told me how to, no one prepared me for such an occasion. Four years old and six feet under! A life robbed of all it’s potential. Or had that potential already blossomed? Who knows? All I know is that today was a day Sheri and I feared most. It was not supposed to end this way. It just can’t end like this!

How did I feel carrying my son’s body in a wooden box up to the place where it shall lay for all eternity? There we buried all our hopes and dreams. Thousands of prayers laid over his body, said from all over the world at every moment of the day and night. Perhaps numb would describe it. Now knowing for sure that the words “mum, dad….I love you”, would never be heard again. Never again would our boy fling the bathroom door open whilst having a shower desperate for the toilet! Never again would he come bounding down the stairs all excited to show his mum something. Never again would he sit in our arms and be cuddled. Never!

2. The Silent God

Sunday, 22 July 2001
Grieving is such strange thing. There is no ‘way’ to mourn. Some cope, others don’t. Some manage to rebuild their lives whilst others continue to fall apart. Some cry, some don’t. Some talk, others retreat into themselves. Some go at it alone; others choose people to walk with them.

How do I feel? I don’t know! How am I supposed to feel? People say they can’t even imagine the pain we are going through. I’m going through it and I am not even sure what it is I’m actually experiencing. Maybe what I’m looking for in my grief is God: the God who seemingly remained silent. The Deity who seemed not to hear any of our prayers, or at least if he did he chose to sit on his hands. I just want to meet with him now. Maybe Adam and Eve hid behind bushes in their shame when he wandered through their back yard, but I’m out where he can see me: waiting, ready to talk and to listen.

3. Contemplating Awkward Conversations

Tuesday, 24 July 2001
Today I have thought about being a Dad but not having a son any more. To be able to contribute to a discussion on child rearing, or funny things kids do, with the knowledge that the knowledge is ‘past’ tense. To be asked who the picture is of on my desk at work. To be questioned on what I do, if I’m married and do I have kids. To know what to say and how to say it. Our family was once four (we fostered Michelle for 18 months who was very much part of our family). For eighteen months four people were always in the car. And now just two. It’s lonely. It feels really unnatural. Something seems awkward. Baby sitters are no longer needed; we can do what we want, when we want, wherever we want. But ironically we just don’t want to.

4. Living for Today......

Tuesday, 24 July 2001
Prayed this morning! Haven’t done that for a while. I was lying in bed thinking of reasons to get out of bed (couldn’t think of any!) and so I started to pray. I find it hard to talk with God at the moment. I asked him to show me a glimpse of what was going through little boys mind in the last few weeks of his life. Big request! Then my mind wondered into imagining what it must have been like to be him and the prayer was over! I wondered if he could comprehend what was going on. Did he find it frustrating to not be able to communicate properly because of the palliative drugs he was on? Was he aware of his mum and dad’s touch? What was he thinking and feeling? Questions to ask and never to be answered perhaps.

One thing I have observed more now is other families. Maybe through envy, perhaps wishing I was them, wanting to be called dad once again. I have seen how parents take their children for granted. I must have done. I have watched preoccupied dads in their own world as their kids try to muster their attention. I did that. I have heard it said that we should live for each day, as if it were our last. We all nod in agreement, yet very few of us really adhere to such a glooming prospect. If I knew that Joshua only had four years on this planet I would have lived much different. I would have not rushed out to endless evening meetings before he went to bed. I would have booked my family into more lunch time appointments! I would have spent more time in parks, walking, watching kids videos, rolling around on the floor, drawing and listening to stories of nursery school. I would have sat on his bed reading him more bed time stories, making up new stories to tell him. I would have changed the way I lived. My priorities would be re-ordered, my time allocated differently, goals re-thought through, ambitions re-evaluated. I would be more spontaneous, not tied down as much, work less hours. I have leant what it now means to live for the day, not only that it could be my last, but it could be the last for people in my life.

5. Nothing that Motivates

Thursday, 26 July 2001
Last night Sheri and I had a time of sadness.  These things come and go.  An overwhelming sense of loss; missing our little boy immensely.  More questions, more confusion.  Fighting between memories of the painful last four weeks and the good times we had together. Neither of us know how we move on with life.  Neither of us, in many ways, want to either.  We have nothing to look forward to.  Perhaps we should be excited about the baby [Sheri was pregnant with Chloe], but it’s hard.  Some will assume this will make life more liveable, like some type of new puppy replacing K9 number one! 

Neither of us feel inspired to read the Bible.  I felt guilty about this, but no-longer.  We pray (if that is what you call it), but not in the same dimension we did.  We felt so close to God but now we can’t see him nor feel him. 

It was C.S. Lewis who in his book, ‘A Grief Observed’ cites the awkwardness of a griever.  He experienced in his own grieving how that people angered him, whatever the response they had to his situation.  If someone ignored it, he was angry. If they asked about it he wished they would have not done so.  Oh how these words are true!  A no-win situation for people around us.  What awkward and difficult people we are.  It surely would be better for all if we disappeared and then returned when the worst of the grieving was over (as was Lewis’ conclusion on this matter).  No tense conversations, no tilt of the heads and the sympathy, no platitudes, and nothing to fuel peoples conversation about second-guessing what we must be going through.  But we can’t run, and neither can we hide

6. Mat Sitters

Thursday 2nd August 2001
Last Friday Sheri and I took off for the weekend, staying in a local hotel. It was nice to have our own space, but the downside is we feel very lonely. People have thought we need to spend time alone. This, as it has worked out, has not been the best thing for us. We are more aware of our loss, our loneliness. No little hand grabbing ours as we walk along together, no occupant of the back seat, no one to buy the kids meal for, no-one to look after as mum does her browsing in the shops. I was acutely aware of just what effect this has had on us both, even in shopping. Sheri used to love to look at clothes for him, as did I. Or look and play with some of the bikes in the big stores, or at drink containers, especially for a boy who loved his juice.

It’s interesting that people think I’ve ‘dealt with the loss’, or coping well! Perhaps people’s perception is that I would be in tears all the time, or lock myself up and hide from the world. I think this actually maybe the reality of what goes on internally for me. I choose not to talk about it with many people. For Sheri, she will talk in some detail to others about the whole situation. For her, this is how she grieves. I have understood though, that I am on the other end of the spectrum. I think people find that hard. They want to see me sad, or vulnerable to all. Some worry that I have no one to talk to. But those closest to me know otherwise. They wait for me to talk, never drawing it out of me until I am ready. There is no right way to grieve, but there are certainly plenty of rights and wrongs for supporting people like us. I think it was Dan (a friend) who told me that in Pakistan when people who are grieving, their friends and neighbours simply come and sit on a mat outside the house. They know their friends are out their sharing their grief, their pain, their loss. They know they profoundly care just by the sitting and being there.

Two things happen in this scenario I think: firstly it’s comforting for those directly dealing with pain to know people carry the same pain, even if it is to a much lesser degree. The second is that it allows people to feel they are doing something. That is something else I’m acutely aware of throughout the past year. People want to support. “If there is anything we can do let us know”, is probably the common wordage in any card to us. People want to be there, and that is good and right. We have known many people to be sitting outside on the mat. We don’t see them, they don’t see us, yet we know that they share, albeit in part, the pain and loss with us.

7. The 'goodness' of God

Sunday 4th August 2001
Actually it’s Saturday, Sunday in UK, but here at 35,000 feet we are in the last few hours of Saturday. Today we fly home. Did we want to? No! Did we want to stay? No! Why would we want to stay, and why on earth would we want to return home to our empty house, with all it’s vivid memories? So being half way between both places seems a better option. But some ways I’m looking forward to returning to visit Joshua’s grave. I have had a few e-mails this past week from friends who have gone to his grave. They tell of the peacefulness, and a chance to reflect and think. It is such a beautiful place to be and I long to be there.

Today we gave away one our CD’s. it was a worship CD (one of the only one’s we own I think), with the song “Lord, you’ve been good to me, all my life.” Not a song we can really identify with right now. Some may tell us that in time we will. I’m not so sure. Though at moments (and there are many) I doubt there is actually a God out there, I do know that God is love. But I fail to feel God has been good to us in this situation. Don’t get me wrong, not for one moment do I believe God did this to us but he did allow it to happen and that, I can’t see the ‘goodness’ in. The meta-narrative may include this incident to work for a good purpose, but it being ‘good’ for us, I just can’t see it. Many songs are sung, book written and sermons preached from a very narrow perspective of life. I don’t believe for one moment that Sheri and I are more enlightened, or that experience determines theology or teaching, but I do think that much is sung, written and said from a limited experience and understanding. Of course, as in the song mentioned above, it may be true for the author/writer, but perhaps over-generalised for the rest of us!

8. Back to Reality

Monday 5th August 2001
Fourteen days after leaving we are home. Back to the home where four years of memories were made. Back to a house which every room has been adapted for his little life. A TV cabinet with all his videos, a kitchen with all his cups, and favourite food, a bathroom with all his bath toys and perhaps hardest of all, his bedroom. What do we do now? Clean all these things up in an attempt to get over his death? This feels like ‘sanitising’, a ‘scorched earth strategy’: getting rid of all trace. I think we understand that to leave Joshua’s room as sacrosanct would be hard for all concerned, but at the same time we don’t want to cleanse the house of his life. But as yet, three or so weeks on, we have not touched anything. It’s still to raw, and almost anything can bring us to tears.

9. The Gold Fish Bowl

Thursday 9th August 2001
This morning I got up to sort out Josh’s web site (the only reason I could think of to get out of bed). I added all the ‘celebration of life’ readings, pictures, etc. It needed updating. Sometimes I think we are trying too hard to keep his web site going. Why would people want to constantly be clicking on a web site dedicated to a dead little boy? People have their lives to get on with. Is this just about parents trying to keep his memory alive?

The actual reality of his death has not perhaps sunken in. Sheri cries a lot. She shouts out questions to God. She gets angry at him. She speaks for hours about it all to friends. I, on the other hand, cry little, I don’t scream out to God, I can’t even be bothered to ask him ‘why’ at times and I speak honestly to only a few, and then only for a short while. This whole thing feels profoundly personal yet so many people have, and do, share in the pain. I guess it feels like playing a game in a large stadium, with a whole crowd watching, or living in a goldfish bowl. I’m aware of it, but would rather not look up at the people looking on. A few come and join us on the field, but never at the intense level at which we play. People watching our every move, wondering how we are really doing. But we did not choose to play, or ask for an audience. The outcome would have been so different had Joshua been healed. We would have taken the same time away, probably to the same place. And we would have been so relieved after such a shit year, yet that year carries on, but to a new level of pain, and grief. We know the outcome, and it will haunt us till we die.

10. ‘I don’t think God likes us’

Monday, 20 August 2001
Sheri said a few days back, ‘I don’t think God likes us’! Give me that line a year ago and I would have quoted all types of things at you. I would feel there was lack of self-esteem, that there was utter lack of understanding. But she has every reason to say such a thing. I said right at the beginning off this journal that I felt like a kid whose dad was full of empty promises, or never turned up when I needed him most. Consequently, in utter disappointment and disillusionment, one could conclude God does not like us very much. But as I write this now I see expressions of Christian friends and hear their consoling words to such a shocking statement. This flies against all we have been taught about the character of God. C.S.Lewis said,

“Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there is no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’(A Grief Observed)

Is this then the journey that people who grieve the death of a loved one have to go through? Do we, who are in utter depths of pain from loss, all think and make such shocking statements about God? Maybe so, but I’m sure this becomes more of a problem to Christians than to God himself. In a moment of sheer anger towards God some months ago, with words unrepeatable even here, thrown out at God, I suddenly felt guilty, yet sensed that God reminded me that he had ‘broad shoulders.’ If only his followers had them too!!

11. Learning to face the world again

Friday, 07 September 2001
It’s been almost two months since Joshua died. With some normality returning to life it is as if the last year never happened, that Joshua was just in a dream. I have noticed though that I feel a little more motivated. Today I did a job out side that I set out to do over a month ago. Back then I tried to find reasons to get out of bed, so would attempt the jobs, but nothing really got done. Perhaps this is improvement? I can now face life. I can perform at work and actually get things achieved. I can go into town and not worry about seeing people and having those awkward interactions. I’m not sure if ‘improvement’ is what has actually happened. I think it just that Sheri and I are learning to face the world again. Our world stopped,….. no shattered…., and yet everyone else’s continued. It felt like people glanced over at our situation in their busy lives, shook their heads in utter sympathy and then returned to normality. Perhaps I’m being cruel. It’s just that their lives have not changed. They don’t have to wake up everyday with a sense of loss. They don’t live in a home that is lifeless with a person missing. They don’t have to change the way they live, or re-think about what they do on days off! In some ways I sense peoples’ sadness is more for us in our loss than that of missing Joshua. I don’t know?. Only a few, mainly family, and Joshua friends, and their parents, would miss his little life. To others he was just another kid, who got a high profile through his illness and death. But people have been kind with their reminders of their thoughts and prayers in cards, even two months on.

12. "Meanwhile, where is God?"

Friday, 07 September 2001 (continued)
There are days when I wish were my last. I may have once feared death but no more. If I found out I had cancer tomorrow I would not be in despair. Joshua has been spared all the crap that life has to offer: the pain, the fighting, the power struggles, the hurtful words, a broken heart, violence, and the list goes on. Why would I want to live tomorrow? But I have breath, I have life and I am thankful for good health today. I will not dishonour my son by choosing death. He never choose it, why should I. He would have wanted to live, to be with his mum and dad, yet his preference wasn’t considered. Why does that sound so cruel? Why would anyone want to take a child from their mummy and daddy?

“Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing him, so happy that you are tempted to feel his claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to him with gratitude and praise, you will be, or so it feels and you are welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is friend and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and the sound of bolting and double bolting from the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the window. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seemingly was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is he so present a commander in our times of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?” (A grief Observed by C.S.Lewis. )

13. Explaining Suffering

Friday, 07 September 2001 (continued)
In movie Shadowlands, in which the real life story of C.S. Lewis and his wife battling against cancer is told, there is a scene where a well-meaning vicar friend of his tries to consol him, to give words of comfort. This is why he perhaps wrote this in his book:

“Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively, but don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.”

Who could argue with that? We just can’t explain any of the suffering we face in life. How can you give reason to children being sexually or physically abused by adults? How can we decipher why millions will go to bed hungry tonight? What about freak accidents? Floods, earthquakes, droughts that take peoples’ lives? We say that many of the worlds affliction is caused by selfish man. Maybe so but we still have a God who can, and does intervene. So why not in every case? There are no great memorable quotes, no pithy statements, no sermons preached, no books written that can truly give explanation to such things. Many blame God; some blame the Devil. I can, for the first time, understand why people think of Christianity as a naïve and thoughtless religion. How can you believe in a God who loves when faced with something that looks quite different? If I were to be brutally honest, most Christian would rather not try to deal with the pain of the world, let alone explain it. Lets take the song, ‘God is good, all the time’ to some of the horrendous refugee camps in parts of the 2/3rds world, and see if they join in with us shall we? Let see if they sing it with a smile, hands high in the air, caught up in some proverbial seventh heaven? They would say you simply don’t understand. They would wonder where you ever came up with such senseless songs. They may wonder if you are actually proof that the ‘aliens have landed’!

They, perhaps, recognize life for what it really is. For those who find God in such situations may well be truly human. They may see the world more how God does. They possibly know God to be ‘good’ in very different ways than we can even comprehend. They would not try to explain suffering away. Phillip Yancey said something of this:

"Those who have known pain profoundly are the ones most wary of uttering the clichés about suffering. Experience with the mystery takes one beyond the realm of ideas and produces finally a muteness or at least a reticence to express in words the solace that can only be expressed by an attitude of union with the sufferer."

I rest my case, for now!!

14. Looking back

Friday, 07 September 2001 (continued)
It’s late! I have been sitting staring at this screen for well over an hour now, collecting thoughts from over the past few weeks. Tears flow at times like these. I cannot write these words, which articulate such depths at times, without tears running frequently down my face. I simply miss him. I long for him to be sitting on my knee now as I type, to be demanding my time, to be pulling me away from my precious computer. And yet all I have now is memories, and a computer to record them.

I read back through some of my journal back last July 2000:

" Four days ago Worthing Hospital discovered a large growth on Joshua’s head….”

And so started the journey, and I dreaded then what I am experiencing now. On the day before his big operation I wrote:

“ ‘now over to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine’
That’s all we can do tomorrow. No worry or fear will change the outcome; only God goes with my boy. So I wrote that up and stuck in Josh’s bed tonight and it will be a testament to his God. Tomorrow is more than just another day.”

If only I knew then what I know now. I remember being in the Intensive Care Unit all that night after Josh’s 11-hour operation. I sat by his bed and wrote an e-mail to people using my palm to write:

“As I sit here now writing this out in the early hours of Tuesday morning whilst sitting next to Josh's bed in the intensive care unit, I'm reminded again of the great privilege it is to be a parent, one with which comes great joys and, at times, great pain. But in some ironic way I wouldn't swap the role for anything in the world! Parenthood! What a privilege!”

I’m more aware of that privilege today than I was back then. That’s perhaps why I wrote this a few weeks later :

“I wake up wondering how long your life will carry you, and then I turn and see you so peacefully asleep
I wonder if the cancer has really gone, then I hear you whisper in my ear how much you love me
I worry that this day will be our last, then I hear you say ‘later daddy, later’
I work through out the day away from home, to come home to the words….’I missed you daddy’
I retreat into my own space and thoughts to hear a distant voice say in frustration….’dad…ohhhh!’
I get on with life, as if nothings wrong, as if nothing happened…and then I see your scar, your hairless head and I remember the shock, the numbness, the sickness, the watching you lay wired up in an intensive care unit.
I want to live for each day, to never let a day go by when I don’t miss the moments that only memory can keep.
To hear the words of a little boy say “Thank you Jesus for healing me” and not even know he was sick.
I long for a day when I take a day at a time, making the most of every moment, not worrying about tomorrow, nor the consequences it may bring. You model life little man.
I fear for a day that I may not be a father, and then I look at a boy who longs for more time with his dad.
Today I am a dad, to one little boy I’m his world, and I’m his hero. He longs to be like me, to hang out with me.
Today I am a father…who could want for more.”

15. Innocent is bliss!

strong>Friday, 07 September 2001 (continued)

Friday, 08 December 2000

How does one continue with life when one has stared death in the face, or indeed does so day after day? But not my own fate, though fragile that may be, but the destiny of a son, who life hangs from a thin thread. Oh I wish I could start again, and forget. Forget the pain, the fear, the anxiety, the anger the tears…oh the tears. Yet we can do nothing but walk in the reality of a past that has shaped the present. You wake up to a day of ‘to do’s’ yet they seem so insignificant, and I turn to face a boy who wakes up to face another day of living: nothing more, nothing less. He knows not his vulnerability, nor the statistics and stories that exist which stack the odds up against him. He knows only life, his mum, his dad, his grandparents and his friends. What else does he need to see another day through?

And God I don’t understand; but I thank you he is alive today! . But God how do we go on, day after day, scan after scan? How?

16. Expressing Loss

Wednesday, 26 September 2001

The saying “Misery likes company” comes to mind. Certainly for Sheri it brings a sense of not being alone when she hears of other stories of parents who have lost their children. This weekend we are going to a day that is for others in our situation. I suppose it is so that we actually are around others who know at great depths how we feel, and are going through the same. Thing is, I don’t want to go! Sheri likes to talk about it to others; I don’t! We talk about it together but that is about my limit, with a few exceptions. So I am not looking forward to it. It’s not that I am running away from the reality of losing Josh, but more of not wanting to open my soul up to others, especially strangers. Some, I think, are fearful for me that I maybe locking it all up inside. A valid fear, and I appreciate the sentiment, but people cannot be told to release the boiled kettle of emotions. I feel more like the microwave popcorn where most of the corn has popped, and occasionally you hear the odd one or two late poppers! Much of my emotional moments were around the first 3 weeks following Joshua’s death. Now the odd moments come, and sometimes when I least expect it.

17. Entering the Treacle of Loss

Wednesday, 26 September 2001 (Cont.)

For the first time since Joshua’s death I felt someone actually standing along side me, along with Sheri, in our pain. Pete simply said, “Nick, I want you to know I still really miss Joshua.”

I said just over two weeks back that many people’s sympathy and heartache is for our loss and grief, and not over missing Josh. Maybe Pete was the first to articulate it, but it meant something. I could not say anything in return due to fighting back the tears. (We had had a tough day already with missing Joshua). It actually felt like someone came into the treacle of pain with us.

18. 'Safe' Amongst Strangers

Sunday, 30 September 2001

It’s late, as it often is when I sit down at my computer, and we have arrived home from our Parent Bereavement conference. So, the day conference: well, not as bad as I thought. There must have been around 70-80 people there, and they had people in groups around tables. The tables were grouped by the rough age of when your child died. There were 3 other couples sitting at our table, all who had an equally sad, and horrific story to tell. I found it hard. I spoke very little, and cried much more. But it was tears amongst friends, though they were strangers! 3 of the couples had lost their child 2 and 7 years ago, and the other only 9 months ago. We, of course, were pretty fresh with less than 3 months. Sitting at a table where people fully understood, truly felt the depths of pain and the sense that the pain never shrinks was something refreshing.

Phillip Yancey, in his book, “What’s so amazing about Grace”, tells of an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), which meets in the basement of a church.

19. Grief and Time

Sunday, 07 October 2001

I always thought that grief was a process; a process by which each day was better than the last. Not so! Over the past two days I have missed Joshua more than ever. Every house in Worthing I go into has pictures of Josh. At one level I am proud to see his picture, but on the other it makes me sad that all that remains is a 2D static image. He should be running around the house, playing with the other kids.

Other than last weekends Parent Bereavement day, I have found that no other place causes me to cry that when sitting here in front of my screen typing out these words. This place is my solace. Here I can retreat into my own thoughts. Nowhere else are my deepest thoughts put into words. I have learnt that I cannot fully articulate myself in any other way.

20. Feelings on Church

Sunday, 07 October 2001 (continued)

Today as I drove home from church, I actually knew that if I did not work for a church, I would not go to church. It is nothing against our particular church, in fact if I have to go to church that would place. It’s just that church feels so alien, such a waste of time. Never before have I felt like this, or at least if I did at times, I have never wanted to quit. But the truth is I feel a greater encounter of ‘church’ when I’m with friends, of in a pub with a Christian friend. Church just feels more like a game we play. We wear our mask, smiles and ‘I’m alright jack’ attire, and yet inside it all feels a bit peculiar. Of course, no-one dares admit that, or if someone does we can never join them. We sing songs that if we really understood we would think twice in singing- and probably never sing them at all!

Do I feel bitter or angry? No, not particularly. Frustrated, yes, but haven’t I always been! That’s the very thing that gives me energy! I just feel a little disillusioned, disenfranchised and perhaps detached

21. Inconsistencies

Sunday, 07 October 2001 (cont.)

I have read some of the entries, and noticed many inconsistencies, or things I disagree with, or even things that sound a little harsh. I am tempted to delete, or re-write. However, this is a journey and things change, I change. So I will leave them there, and let them be a record, or as markers in the sand of where I have come from.

22. Hanging on to grief

10th October, 2001

strong>In some ways, if I’m honest, I don’t want to get over the loss of Josh. I know the pain will always be there, and that life just may seem more liveable, but part of me wants to stay where I am. I don’t want to become hard hearted about it, or allow my emotions to be able to cope with not having him around. I want to miss him. But if life does seem inhabitable then I will stay in my current condition, a place that is full of frustrations and ‘non-contentness’. Here is a place of great reflection, and I do not want to loose that edge. In looking back, and looking where I am now has raised many questions for me, which in turn have led to more. And it seems ironic that even though sometimes there are no easy answers, or no answers at all, there are some insights by the very nature of asking the questions! I feel a great freedom in doing so. I have dared to ask questions that I could never face before. It’s a bit like taking a bite of that disgusting looking food your parents used to make me try because you had never in fact done so, and actually discovering that it does taste OK. There is also great release in being honest to people. Often this is done for the sake of shock, or as some crass radical edge. But done in complete integrity and it feels like you have released something that has weighed you down for years.

23. Tears, a lost way and silence!

Monday 22nd October, 2001
Today I wept up at the grave. In fact, I suddenly realised what I was doing as I was trimming the grass around it. I was supposed to be rolling around with him as we played-fight not trimming some stupid grass that was growing on to the mound of earth that now covers him up. What is this strange thing I now do in for the sake of my son.

I wept because I miss him, and also because I have lost my way. Last night I considered ways to take my life. I’m not alone in this. Most who have lost someone dear to them has pondered such drastic actions. ‘A barren place’ was how a friend described it today to me! It’s not as if I’m staring at some other fence which seemingly has greener grass awaiting my arrival. Nothing! I have no reason to get up tomorrow…nothing.

After our working trip to the graveside, I dropped Sheri off and headed to the seafront. I just stood at the waters edge, asking God to speak. And what did he say……nothing! Just silence! I tried to guess. I made up words. I thought of everything! But he didn’t show up. And so those words of C. S. Lewis seem to ring true again, and again; ‘…silence, then more silence!’

24. A Child's Profound Words

Monday 22nd October, 2001 (cont.)

Today in church I was sat behind a family whom I do not know too well. Their 5/6 year old looked at me, and during one of the songs, came over to me and said, “I really miss Joshua!” The mum looked at me and smiled sympathetically (I’m not convinced she heard what he said). Those words meant something today. Children don’t put pretend too well. They can’t be superficial. What I got from that kid was something from his heart. He didn’t think it inappropriate, or insensitive. He didn’t get embarrassed when he told me. He simply spoke out some truth to me, and it meant more than comments from most adults! He misses my little boy!

25. Light at the end of the tunnel?

Saturday 10th November, 2001

I find myself with a great desire to do achieve more with my life, to do something that can be dedicated to Joshua, which, by it’s nature, is a legacy to his life. But for now I will tread water, endeavour to be patient and work through my grief. I do not assume myself to be in some tunnel of despair that I will eventually see light at the end and come out of, having dealt with all the grief! In that description there is no tunnel. But if it is a tunnel where I and Sheri come out new and changed people (different even), whilst still retaining that great loss, which at times cripple us, then indeed I am in a tunnel.

I know what it is to physically walk through a tunnel that looses the light at both ends. At that point of pitch darkness the senses of the hand are what guided as they rubbed against the tunnel wall, whilst the other grabs hold of the person in front. There is an element of fear and an anxiety what may lay ahead. But there is also excitement, elements of trust and learning to bring other senses into play for things they are not used to functioning on behalf of. Like any analogy, it only goes so far but there are lots of parallels here with my own situation. At one level there is an anticipation of seeing light, but once you do, so ends the experience and adventure. But I hope this will not be the case for me. And what would light at the end of the tunnel look like anyway? It’s such a generic term that so many use in respect to suffering and hardships, which feels a little subjective. Those who walk through such tunnels of pain and suffering always come out changed people. Some times such people are labelled and branded by their grief, or situation and put in some pigeonhole, as if to explain them away. Some, no in fact many who have been through pain and suffering have left a mark on this world which meant it could never be the same again

26. A personal turning point

Saturday 10th November, 2001 (cont)

Many of our greatest authors and ‘world changers’ are people who have known great depths of pain.  But what is it that stops many of these people from becoming bitter with a supernatural God who allowed such depths of anguish?  Perhaps when they reflect on all that has happened, attaining very few answers, they can only conclude what Yancey said of John Donne; 

…..and when faced with doubts, to review my alternatives;  if for whatever reason I refuse to trust God, what, then, can I trust?

And perhaps this too is a turning point for me, when considering all that I have reflected on thus far.  I make no apology for what has gone before and all that is to come.  I may shift from this view but I feel my soul moving to a place where I can trust God once more, though still hard at times.  And that ‘trust’ is perhaps defined in different ways and experienced far more deeply. For as I move from this tunnel I am changed and will not be the same.  But I want to be clear to myself, and any potential observer here, that I am not ‘back in the saddle’ as if I should ride off into the sunset of the future without any of the past!

27. Unspeakable pain

Tuesday 20th November,  2001

Last week I started to do high school assemblies again. I was nervous, I over prepared and I felt insecure!  It was like I had never stood up in front of 300 teenagers before!  I spoke on the subject of Love!  Everything inside of me wanted to talk about Josh.  I have loved nothing more and lost anything greater.  I wanted to talk about making the most of today, for tomorrow is not certain.  I did this in part but I did not mention Joshua.  I thought it to be too manipulative, too close, too emotional!  But yet this one little boy has inspired me like no-one ever has yet I remained silent.

And I think I have remained detached even in this sacred space!  I have not talked in full about those last months.  I have not articulated the utter devastation of that one phone call in January that informed us that Joshua’s tumour was back.  And neither have I talked about the morning when the words…”mum, my head hurts” were heard from his precious lips.  And those last 6 weeks of his life!  I have hinted at some of this but never fully opened up, not even to myself.  There are still moments when I remember some of the events described above and my heart, emotions and even physical condition curls up into a ball.  I have to mentally put a block on the thoughts.  Sheri and I do not talk about it- it’s just too painful.  We would rather remember the happy Joshua who ran, played, laughed and sang. Not the condition he was in when he died in his mothers arms.  But I am afraid to ‘get it out’.

28. Announcing our second child

Monday 26^th November, 2001

Yesterday we told people that Sheri is expecting our second child.  Here’s what was sent out on e-mail:

Taking six months to inform people of our second child seems strange we know.  The whole thing has joy and profound sadness encapsulated within it.  But perhaps the best part of this next stage of our lives is that our little Joshua knew about it.  We found out Sheri was pregnant three weeks before his passing from us, and although Joshua was not fully conscious due to the palliative medicine, we do believe he heard and shared that moment of happiness with us.  So we are proud that he will have the baby brother or sister that he so desperately wanted his mummy to have.  It will be hard not to have Joshua around as we continue to grow our family.  Perhaps the hardest thing of all is that our next child will not fully know his/her brother. This baby will never replace him, nor necessarily make life ‘easier’ in the wake of his absence but we are of course learning to become excited with another creation of life into our family. We thank you for all you continued love, concern and prayers over these last months.

29. "What gets you out of bed?"

Tuesday 10^th December, 2001

I have found myself sat at this computer on a number of occasions wanting to write but not having the energy to do so.  Early on in this journey I found that a week would not go by without me adding an entry.  Yet things have slowed down.  When I stop now and spend time reflecting, I become a broken man.  Today I just stared at the two pictures of Josh on my notice board and just reminded myself what I am missing.  How can a little life just disappear like that?  How can we have no kids now?  No bundle of energy to come home to.  No little person to cuddle up with as we watch the videos.  I hate it!  It just doesn’t feel fair!  It isn’t!  Someone asked me how I get myself up out of bed each morning!  Good question!  What is it?  Responsibility I guess.  Life has to carry on. Although, quite frankly, I wish it didn’t.  I would much rather stop it here, but that’s not possible.

30.Difficult days

Saturday 5^th January 2002

 

I have lost much of my impetuous to write in the journal.  Since Joshua has died and especially in the past 8 weeks, I have felt no motivation for anything; work, reading, marriage, anything. Sheri says I’m falling towards depression! Who knows, and frankly who cares. No ‘other side’ looks greener or appealing, though I’m tempted at times to leap over another wall. But what would that gain me? I would be where I am now. 

 

Tomorrow I go to that thing we call ‘church’! I will have to get up early and prepare the mask that I, and perhaps many others, will have to wear. I will have to forget that my boy lies dead on the hillside above Worthing, that this week Sheri and I have talked about ‘getting out’ of our marriage and that I really don’t want to be there. I will have to pray for world affairs and look like I really believe that God may answer our words. I may have to speak to new comers and make them feel welcome and the trip in was worth it. Tomorrow I will have to, again, sit without my family amongst many other people who do. But this is something I have gotten used to for well over a year now. 

 

In church I simply feel lonely.  

 

Who is God and does He really exist, and if so does He really Love me? Is Little Joshua really up there with Jesus? Why can’t he give me a glimpse of this, to let me know that he is safe. Does Joshua know anything of his dad now ? Does he miss me? Does he see our pain at all? Does he know he is going to have a baby brother of sister? Does God care? Does he feel the pain and regret what He did? And why the way he went; the pain, the uncomfortable state he was in and not being able to talk. I’m a broken man in utter pain and I just don’t want to go on with anything. 

 

Sheri hates me being this way. I feel I’m not allowed to truly grieve my way. I can’t snap out of it and I’m not sure I much desire too either. I want to run away and not come back. There is no logic to this, perhaps I know what I should do, but I don’t care. I can’t help the way that I feel.

31. A Retreat

Sunday 14^th January 2002

Today I have come away by myself! A retreat.  Why?  Well that’s hard to articulate succinctly, but suffice to say I just felt I needed it.  My head has been spinning for some weeks now; everything seems like it is up in the air, and I have not really had the space to let my thinking and feelings ‘breath’. 

I think the entry in January 5^th best sums it up.  I was having a bad night, but then again it articulates some of the inner feelings.  What will help me stay alive this year?  Am I simply in the middle of a jungle, intending to go nowhere, or am I on a journey with a destination?  If I am on a journey, then maybe it might be good to see where I am on the map, to establish a starting point, a point from which I can see where I have moved. 

So here goes with my spontaneous mapping exercise.  I will divide my life in to segments and comment on each.  Of course, I recognise that each area has a profound effect on the other, but at least it’s a start: (See following entries).

32. God

(Continued)

God-  For years people have been trying to articulate ‘where they are’ with God!  Is it that easy?  Can we be so presumptuous as to gauge a relationship with God?   Perhaps this quote from a letter to Yancey in the book “searching for the invisible God” has something similar to say on this:

“I know there is a God: I believe he exists, I just don’t know what to believe of him.  What do I expect from this God?  Does he intervene upon request (often/seldom), or am I to accept his Son’s sacrifice from my sins, count myself lucky and let the relationship go at that?

                I accept that I’m an immature believe: that my expectations of God are obviously not realistic.  I guess I’ve been disappointed enough times that I simply pray for less and less in order not to be disappointed over and over.

                What is a relationship with God supposed to look like anyway?  What should we expect from a God who says we are his friends?

33. Six days till child number 2!

Friday 22^nd February 2002

In 6 days I will be sitting here as a father of two children! There will  the sound of a crying baby, and 101 jobs to do, and stressed parents! It’s a strange time. I can’t imagine having a second child. It’s so hard to be all excited: the whole thing is wrapped in joy and sadness. In some ways it feels like we are leaving Joshua behind in this massive new event in our lives. He should have been every bit a part of it, yet he’s not and that’s the crap part. I won’t know how I feel until next Thursday…I’ll get back to you!!!

34. New Addition to the Family!

Sunday 3^rd March 2002

I cannot continue to write anything until I speak of the new bundle of joy that has entered our lives. Chloé Joy Turnbull was born 10.22am on 28^th February 2002. She is just beautiful! Yet in the joy, there is pain. We were once three, went back to two, and now three again, physically that is. We are still four! But there is a great element of loneliness that surrounds this whole milestone in our lives. When we take a family picture it is even more obvious that there is someone missing. Josh wanted a little sister so much. He would have been so excited to go into hospital and see his new sister, jump onto the bed to give his mum a hug and give Chloé lots of hugs and kisses. But he’s not, and so we once again, as on many, many occasions, miss him like crazy. And with Chloé I’m so aware, as is Sheri, of how precious her little life is and how we just can’t take that for granted, ever. I want her life to be a legacy to her big brothers. I want her to grow up knowing how frail life is; yet not living in fear because of that reality. I want her to grasp every minute, hour, day, week and year to the best of its potential and live it ultimately in the light of the end, which is in fact the beginning. I guess that is what I prayed for her when I held her for the first time.

35. Journal Reflections

Sunday 3^rd March 2002 (cont.)

 

I seem to be really slowing down on writing in this journal. At one level that frustrates me and yet at another perhaps it says something about my grief. I think now that I am able to articulate it much more verbally; I have less need to write out my current thinking and feelings here. But still many questions go spinning through my head, which I find helpful to raise here. It helps me capture those thoughts and begin a process of making sense of them, consequently raising more questions. 

36. Is God Fair?

Friday 8^th March 2002

 

It’s late, and all I want to say tonight is that I simply miss my little boy! My life is up and down.  Sometimes the outlook is good, other days similar to that of 8 months ago or so. Little Chloé is such a gift but also a mirror that reflects the missing family member.

 

A week ago or so we were talking with a friend about whether God is fair. This is not the place for a theological thesis but we concluded that God is not fair. Two thirds of our world lives in poverty. Thousands of children and adults will die tonight from starvation or treatable diseases. Others will be murdered, die of cancer, have a horrific accident or be an innocent victim of some war-torn country. How can God be fair as I sit here in my home, with commodities surrounding me, living on the two top rungs of the wealth ladder on this entire planet? Some may argue that it is not God who is not fair but life! Fair point! To that I may agree but still the question remains of how God fits in, intervenes (or not), works out his purposes and ‘blesses’ in such a crap world? To that I have no definitive answer or even a strong argument to put forward. What I do suspect is though, that if I can find the ‘incarnation’ of God in this cesspit of a planet, then I may well find the reality of this mystical, supernatural and incomprehensible Being. Life will not be fluffy but then neither will my faith. 

37. feeling the pressure

Monday 6th May 2002

Well, felt the urge to write some stuff today. I haven't written in this for ages now and have missed these times of retreating into my place of soul searching. I'm finding life generally difficult right now; boring in fact.  I think with the run up to Josh's 5th birthday and with Andy (my boss) leaving us for 3 months (sabbatical), the pressure is getting to me.

38. A Letter To Josh

Wednesday 4th September 2002

Dear Joshua

 I still love you. I wish it were you that I took to

Bournemouth

on holiday. I long to see you little man. I long to lay with you until you are asleep. I wish we could go crab fish, go to the beach, go shopping for cool clothes. I wish you and I could go camping together this summer: put up the tent, build a fire, fish, build sand castles, kick a ball.

You are never far from my mind dude! I am carrying on with life because I know you would want that. You loved life and will try to do the same. I will try and make some difference in this crap world.

One day I will join you. I hope we can make up the lost time. I hope you greet me at my death and resurrection.

I love you and miss you Josh. Daddy will always be thinking of you

Dad

39. Made it!

Monday September 26th 2002
Well I managed without Andy for three and a half months (he went away on sabbatical). Had quite a bottle neck on the 20th May of all days: Joshua's 5th Birthday,  Andy left the day before and I was down to preach my first sermon in  2 years! It all got a little too much for me. But three or four sermons later, along with a few leadership challenges (so memorable that I can't remember them now!) and plenty to keep me busy I have found the whole time more of a learning experience, which I had not anticipated. 

40. Lost time?

September 29th 2002

Today did something quite special on holiday in Cornwall. We drove into the campsite which I spent most of my early years on holiday during the summer, and drove down as far as we could to the cliffs. Then we packed Chloe into the back carrier and walked down to where I used to go rock pooling and exploring as a kid. We also walked round to the little beach which we spent so many summer days on. I really would have liked to take Joshua there, to tell him what I did when i was a boy, to allow him to explore, catch little fish in the rock pool. We would have fished and enjoyed being together.

41. reflecting

Tuesday 25^th March 2003

Not sure when I wrote the following, guess it was for a web site thing, or something. Just wanted to make sure I didn’t loose it:

 Two years, almost to the day Nick wrote these words in my journal:

 

42. "So I'm praying while not knowing how to pray...."

Tuesday 26^th March 2003

The ironic thing about me journaling is it is the one thing I enjoy, a place for me to stop and reflect and learn; a haven where I feel free to express emotions and mourn Joshua, yet I have been too ‘busy’ to do it! No excuse, but now with this web storage, I am trying to keep it up, no matter where I am!

I frankly can’t be bothered to summarise the last 6 months, since I last wrote, but rather just write what comes to mind as I sit here.

I have recently read a book by Henri Nouwen called ‘Adam’. Fantastic book, or at least if you want to be challenged about what type of person you have to be to be used by God to impact others. Adam was a highly mentally and disabled man. Nouwen was a prolific writer, catholic priest, popular speaker and University lecturer. Need I say more! Anyway, I have been recently drawn to a short Chapter on him written by Yancey in his book, ‘Soul Survivor’. There are some excellent quotes from that book, which I would like to add here, and maybe now, or at a later stage reflect on: